This 3,000-year-old ceramic jar from the time of King David is inscribed with the name Eshba'al Ben Beda'. (Tal Rogovsky)

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When archaeologists stumbled upon hundreds of shards of pottery at the Khirbet Qeiyafa biblical site near Jerusalem in 2012, they noticed letters in ancient Canaanite on some of the pieces and began the work of putting the 3,000-year-old jar back together. What they found was the inscription of a name, Eshba'al Ben Beda' (spelled Bada' in some sources), which bears some resemblance to Eshba'al Ben Shaul, the ruler of Israel in the 10th century BC, reports LiveScience. Over several seasons of excavations at this site, which dates to the time of King David, archaeologists have also unearthed two gates, a palace, storerooms, dwellings, and cultic rooms.

The team says the finding is an indication that writing was far more widespread at this point than previously thought, and also that Eshba'al Ben Beda' was likely a prominent figure—possibly the owner of a large agricultural estate, which would have sent out its goods in jars bearing his name. "The name Beda' is unique and does not occur in ancient inscriptions or in the biblical tradition," one researcher tells the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while Eshba'al "was a common name only during" the reign of David. (Check out why archaeologists dubbed this find "sleeping beauty.")

The first Marine division to reach the ancient city of Babylon first set up headquarters in Sadam's new palace that sits on a hill and overlooks the rebuilt city. The soldiers then set up regular patrols and had some time to do exploration. They found a lot of complete oil lamps, water vessels, oil pots, and bowls. Many of those items made it back to the US in their bags. Every once in a while you may see one of these items on Ebay fetching some nice coin.